


Pas Un Ange

by inlovewithnight



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Gen, Medieval France, Religion, Torture, casefile, child illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:55:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25995586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight
Summary: 1300 or so, the south of France. Yusuf and Nicolò get caught up in local politics, and Nicolò's healing leads a priest and a soldier to jump to conclusions.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 22
Kudos: 306





	Pas Un Ange

Nicolò’s horse threw a shoe outside of Cahors. Yusuf thought about that shoe for decades, after. Such a small, simple thing, to bring about so much pain.

Because it was late afternoon when the horse pulled up lame and they realized the shoe was gone, they decided to stay in Cahors overnight. They would have dinner and sleep at one of the town’s little inns. In the morning they would find a blacksmith, have the horse re-shod, and continue on their way north. They had been meandering their way around Europe for a while, stopping here and there to swing a battle this way or that, to prevent an atrocity or two, sometimes just to amuse themselves by poking around a town or castle and see what got stirred up by their presence.

It wasn’t the most dignified use of eternity, but then, what would be?

Yusuf had suggested that they detour to Rome and scare the shit out of the Pope, but Nicolò had vetoed the idea. They were supposed to meet Andromache and Quynh somewhere to the north and east, sometime in the next five winters or so. Yusuf could never remember the name of the city, only that it was old. “From before the Romans,” Andromache had said, as if that meant anything. “It was old before they got there, and then they took it over and made it theirs, like they did all everywhere they went…”

She’d trailed off, her eyes going distant as always when she talked about things older than the two of them. They had manners; they stepped aside and let Quynh coax her back from her memories, and the next day the two pairs of them split off and apart. The women had gone east, the men west, and eventually they would meet again.

“Remind me,” Yusuf said, poking at the grayish mutton that the inn offered for the evening meal, “where we are going?”

Nicolò blinked at him, eyes shadowed by the smoky light in the room. “Saint-Cirq-Lapopie, I thought.”

“No, no, I mean… ultimately. Where are we meeting the others?”

“Oh.” Nicolò nodded and sipped his wine. “Trier. But it’s ages yet before we need to be there.”

“Trier,” Yusuf echoed. “Saint-Cirq-Lapopie. I’m still not used to these places.”

“There’s no reason to be.” Nicolò flashed him a small smile and then sighed over his plate. “I wonder what crime this sheep committed to end up like this. It couldn’t have been an innocent creature. Not with this fate.”

“It could be worse.” Yusuf thought about wartime rations, or what was left of them by the time he and Nicolò both died. From the look at Nicolò’s face, his thoughts had gone the same direction. They tilted their mugs of wine toward each other and drank. Things could absolutely be worse.

The evening wore on quietly enough. They sat in the common room with the fire, listening to the gossip of the town—Nicolò quietly translating what he could, and Yusuf picking up plenty from facial expressions and hand gestures and the fact that he had had several hundred years now for these Western languages to begin to piece together in his head.

A few villagers eyed the two of them warily, and one merchant who was passing through tried to convince them to join up with him and pledge mutual protection on the road. “I’ve a man hired to guard my wagons,” he said, “but two extra swords are always handy, and you would benefit from sharing food and a place to sleep under the wagons at night.”

“The hour or two we’re not on watch,” Nicolò pointed out dryly. “Would we be paid for our labors, kind sir?”

The merchant smiled, broad and ingratiating. “I’m afraid I have no coin to spare, but meals and a place to sleep aren’t to be sneezed at, my friend.”

Nicolò glanced at Yusuf, one eyebrow arching, and Yusuf shook his head, just a finger’s width left and right. Best not to tie themselves to anyone else’s pace, or to the risk that those wagons might be robbed after all.

“It’s a kind offer,” Nicolò said smoothly, “but I’m afraid we must decline. Our business is uncertain and we would hate to delay you. Godspeed you to your market, friend.”

“Ah, well.” The merchant sighed and sketched a sign of the cross. “Your companion, is he from Castile?”

Yusuf tensed, not letting himself reach for his sword but shifting so it would come more easily to his hand if needed. These miserable, nosy people. In the port cities, Yusuf and Quynh both drew little more than idle glances, but the further they came inland—

“Valencia,” Nicolò said smoothly, getting to his feet. “Goodnight.”

Yusuf stood as well and followed Nicolò to their room. “Valencia?” he asked.

“Port city. You would call it part of Al-Andalus. The—the caliphate, no?”

“Oh!” Yusuf sat down gingerly on the bed. “Why didn’t we go there instead? Balansiyya is supposed to be beautiful.”

“We can go. You want to turn south? We can.” Nicolò sat down next to him, leaning heavily against his shoulder with a sigh. “I’ll go anywhere that calls to you. We don’t have to make it to Trier this winter, or even next winter. Whichever pair of us gets there first will wait.”

“Maybe.” Yusuf glanced toward the door; there were three beds in the room, which meant they could expect anywhere from four to ten other travelers to share the space for the night. At the moment, though, they were alone, and he took the chance to press a kiss to Nicolò’s hair. “I would like to see Al-Andalus someday.”

“Then we’ll go.” Nicolò squeezed his hand. “We’ll forget about Saint-Cirq-Lapopie and turn south tomorrow.”

“My kind one.” Yusuf kissed him again and then lay back on the bed. No point taking his boots off; it would only give the vermin in the room easier access. “I’ve heard Al-Andalus is like paradise, you know. Oranges, all year round. Rivers that sparkle like jewels in the sunlight. Beautiful women, handsome men, music in the air.”

“Then I look forward to seeing it.” Nicolò lay down beside him. “It will be well worth the journey.”

They slept, waking only briefly when the other patrons came into the room and claimed their own beds. In the end it was only five of them in the space; Cahors was not, at this time of year, in particularly high demand as a destination.

Five in the room meant they were able to move fairly easily, and escape out the window, when the Count of Rodez attacked the village and his men set the inn on fire.

**

Chaos, screaming, raging heat behind them and the ache of smoke in his lungs; Nicolò was more familiar with all of those things than he had any desire to be. He knew Yusuf was behind him, a step away and covering his back, like always. He didn’t bother to look back through the smoke, but kept moving forward, stumbling through the courtyard toward the street that would, with any luck, lead them toward the little river the town had been built on.

Later he would regret that, of course. He should have looked back, should have taken Yusuf’s hand and made sure that they weren’t separated in the crowd of people scrambling toward the river and its hoped-for safety. The smoke was thick, the crowd was panicked, and the Count’s men swept in unpredictably.

The soldiers were sudden bodies moving counter to the crowd, with more purpose, some mounted and some afoot. Nicolò hardly registered them as anything other than something to avoid, like a rock in a stream, until he felt hands on his arms, pulling him through the smoke until his body collided with the warm mass of a horse.

“Young and able,” he heard a voice say from atop the horse. “He’ll do.”

The man holding Nicolò grunted, and Nicolò felt a length of rope twisting around his wrists. “There’s been a mistake,” he said, not sure if he should pitch his voice for the man on the horse or the one behind him. “I’m a traveler, passing through. I’m not a vassal of this land.”

The man behind him grunted again. “You’re on the Count’s land and that’s good enough for him, friend. He needs bodies and he doesn’t much care where they come from.”

“If your people come looking for you and you’ve died, he’ll have the monks do a lovely service for your soul,” the mounted man said. “But there’s no use arguing with us about it now, we’ve got our orders and that’s all there is to it.”

Nicolò dragged in a breath, then let it go again. Fair enough. There wasn’t anything to be gained from fighting the hired men. He let the one behind him drag him down the road away from the river, to where a pair of battered wagons waited surrounded by grim men with weapons in their hands and bad-quality clothes and boots that said their master was fighting outside of what he could fund.

“Up in the wagon, there,” the man said, giving him a little push. Rough, but not brutal; Nicolò had lived long enough to appreciate the difference. “Don’t get any ideas about running. We’d hate to kill you, because his Grace was very specific about needing bodies for his little war, but if we need to make an example, we will.”

“I understand.” He tried to school his face into the appropriate approximation of fear, but at three hundred and something years old, he was losing the memory of what that should look like. Hopefully the darkness and the smoke would keep the men from noticing that he was, at best, only mildly concerned. And that concern was not for his own safety, but for Yusuf—where he was, if he had also been captured, and how long it would take him to get back to Nicolò’s side.

He leaned against the side of the wagon and looked up at the sky. Clouds of smoke were illuminated by the fire raging through Cahors and blocking out the sky. Somewhere around the town, Yusuf was looking up at the same evidence of misery. Somewhere across the world, Andromache and Quynh could see the stars.

**

When Yusuf realized he had lost Nicolò in the smoke, he cursed the miserable petty little wars of this part of the world. He kept making his way toward the river, though; none of them had ever tested if they could survive burning, and Nicolò would follow the same logic if he was able.

He waited on the river’s bank until the sun rose over the mess that was left of Cahors. From what Yusuf could overhear and understand, most of the women and children had reached the river. But the number of men there, even combined with the number of bodies scattered throughout the streets of the town, didn’t come up to the right total.

Yusuf wet his sleeve and wiped at his face, probably making more of a mess than cleaning anything. Still, making the small effort helped him to focus, and to think. Nicolò wasn’t among the people gathered at the river. He wasn’t among the bodies in the streets, either, of course. Unless he had burned and was unable to come back, he must be with the missing men of Cahors, wherever they had gone.

The idea of him being dead beyond recall was, quite simply, unthinkable, and so Yusuf dismissed it. Nicolò was not dissolved among the ashes. Therefore, he was with the missing men.

Among the words being repeated over and over again, and that he understood, was the name of the Count of Rodez. The women said it and spit, or wept. The surviving men said it in weary tones. Yusuf knelt at the riverbank and splashed water directly on his face this time, letting it wash some of the smoke and exhaustion away.

The Count of Rodez had attacked Cahors. That made him the best, and indeed only, possible lead toward where Nicolò might be. Therefore, Yusuf would find him. It was as simple as that.

He walked away from the river, leaving the crowd of despondent townspeople behind. Perhaps it would have been better to attempt to rally them, to tell them that he would help find their missing men, since his Nicolò was likely with them. Perhaps that would have been the heroic and even the morally _right_ thing to do.

He didn’t. Their problems were their own, and he couldn’t bring himself to see them as anything but the merest shadow next to his need to find Nicolò. He left them weeping and arguing at the river and walked out of Cahors.

It was easy enough to follow the trail of the Count’s men. Hoofprints, horse shit, wagon tracks, and discarded bits and pieces from looting the town marked the road eastward. Yusuf settled into a steady pace, one that he knew from experience he could keep up for hours if needed. With a bit of luck, he would find a horse or a donkey that had fled the burning town in the night.

He didn’t, but as the sun passed its height and settled into the afternoon he came across a small farm with a scrawny mare tied to a tree and lipping at thistles by the roadside. Stealing the beast might make a hard season for the farmer and his family, but that didn’t matter now. Nicolò was all that mattered.

Yusuf clicked his tongue and murmured softly to the mare, earning a solemn blink and a swish of her tail. He took the rope and fashioned it into a makeshift bridle, boosted himself up onto her bony back, and nudged her ribs until she achieved a slow, jolting trot down the road that by now he was reasonably sure led to Rodez.

He could worry about his sins later, once Nicolò was free. Unless there was a sudden and abrupt change in his circumstances, after all, he could expect to have plenty of time.

**

The prisoners were herded into a courtyard at the fortress above Rodez, where the Count’s men tossed a few buckets of water over them. When the cursing and sputtering was complete, they were escorted to a granary and closed inside, the same way wandering cattle might be. Nicolò looked at the wooden gate with amusement before settling in a corner of the space. He could go over or through that with no trouble, after nightfall. He would get on the road back to Cahors and hopefully cross paths with Yusuf halfway between.

They were given bread in the afternoon, water a bit later, and gruel for the evening meal. The other prisoners talked amongst themselves, low conversations that Nicolò half-listened to, dipping in and out as he dozed, letting the heavy stone blocks he leaned against cool his body. The other men were hoping to bargain for their freedom, promising a higher tribute from the village. Nicolò wished them the best but doubted that the Count would be interested. If he wanted fighting men, money wouldn’t do. He would hand them pitchforks and sticks and point them toward his enemies, because every body on the ground slowed the other army to step around it.

“What about you, stranger?” Silence followed, until Nicolò realized the question was targeted at him. He opened his eyes and blinked slowly at the men of Cahors, who were united for the moment in staring at him.

“I’m afraid I don’t have anything to offer in tribute,” he said after a moment. “I was only passing through with my friend.”

“Where were you going? Is anyone expecting you?” A quick murmur spreads through the group. “Anyone who might be able to offer a ransom? Or your family, could they raise one?”

Nicolò forced a smile. Yes, let him contact his nephews’ great-great grandchildren and see if they cared to pay a ransom for a family ghost. “I have no family, and no one was expecting us. We were seeking our fortune in Al-Andalus.”

One of the men frowned at that. He looked vaguely familiar—perhaps he had been in the inn the night before? Nicolò couldn’t remember. Keeping track of individual faces was a waste of time and energy, so often. “You two rode into town from the south. Why were you heading north if you’re seeking Al-Andalus?”

“Oh, well.” Nicolò sighed, giving up on keeping his smile in place. These men weren’t disposed to be on his side, which was understandable. He was a stranger here, and life was hard. They could use a target for their fear more than an ally. He _understood_ , but this still was likely to be unpleasant. “We were heading to Saint-Cirq-Lapopie, as our original plan, but we decided last night to go to Al-Andalus instead.”

It sounded absurd said aloud. Taking a great swing in a journey like that was unfathomable for villagers who spent their lives happily at home unless dragged off to fight a noble’s war. From the narrowed eyes looking at him, and the murmuring that started low and quickly grew louder, they didn’t believe him at all.

“That’s a strange and sudden change,” the man out front said. “What would suddenly send you running south when you have an open road north ahead of you?”

Nicolò shrugged. “A whim, honestly. My friend has Moorish blood. He took it in his head to see Al-Andalus.”

“Over a meal in the village inn, he takes a whim to go looking for his roots.” The man shook his head. “You’ll pardon me for not believing that, man.”

Nicolò pushed himself to his feet. This was going to be extremely unpleasant. “I suppose I don’t have any say in if you believe it or not. If you and your friends plan to beat me, you might as well get started. It won’t make the guards let you go, so I’m not sure there’s any point to it, but if you insist…”

They insisted.

After the second or third boot and fist to the head, Nicolò sank into comfortable darkness. He was familiar with this; it wouldn’t be for long. Hopefully the guards would have dragged him somewhere else by then.

**

Yusuf reached the village of Rodez after dark. He let the mare loose on the road and walked the last bit afoot, keeping to the shadows as he approached the ditch that marked the line between village and fields. He sat down at the base of a tree there and studied the situation, bringing a blade of grass up to his mouth to chew slowly while he thought.

Item: the village was ragged and its defenses were poor. The Count’s wars were still expansionary rather than defensive at this point. But he was conscripting men by force, so he must have reached the crest of the wave, now teetering on the edge of falling. An unstable position, which would make for an unpredictable man.

Item: the fortress was set back from the village, on a hill. He couldn’t see the walls well enough in the dark to know if they were also poorly-defended, but the Count’s own space would likely be kept up better than the village. Assume they were properly tended to and guarded.

Item: a pig was approaching, grunting peaceably to itself. An unclean animal, but unlikely to raise an alarm upon encountering Yusuf, as a dog or a donkey might.

“Peace be upon you,” he murmured as it paused to sniff at his foot. “It’s a hard life for all of us, I think, friend.”

The pig grunted again and wandered off. Yusuf leaned back against the tree and chewed the blade of grass into a thorough pulp. He was hungry and thirsty, but bodily needs could wait. Once the village settled into full sleep and he only had to worry about the night watch on the fortress walls, he would slip through the streets, find water, and then make his way up to intrude on the Count’s hospitality long enough to find Nicolò. Thereupon, they would take their leave by any means necessary.

One by one, the village fires dimmed. Yusuf put another blade of grass in his mouth and turned his eyes to the fortress. When only torches and kitchen lights remained, he would move.

**

Nicolò wasn’t precisely _used_ to this—it was impossible to get used to—but after three hundred years, he knew a few tactics to protect himself.

When the guards dragged him out of the granary and dropped him into the courtyard, he was semi-conscious, enough to groan helplessly and rub his face against the flagstones, hoping the friction would be enough to keep the wounds on his face open. In another minute or two he might need to break his nose to keep them from noticing the other bruises fading. He needed to get out of here.

The guards were standing nearby, arguing amongst themselves in low voices. “He’s a foreigner!” called one of the prisoners from the gate across the granary. “From the South! Probably a spy anyway! Tell the Count to take him and let us go home!”

“The Count isn’t sending any of you home,” the chief guard said absently. Nicolò closed his eyes and groaned again as the man nudged him in the ribs with one foot. “Is that true, though? You’re not from here?”

Nicolò nodded, moving his arm to better hide his face for as long as possible. “I’m from Genova,” he said in his native tongue, leaning hard on the city name. “A traveler.”

“Genova,” the guard muttered, turning back to his fellows. “Did that miserable fuck say anything about what to do with foreigners caught up in the sweeps?”

Silence followed. Nicolò bit at his tongue and spit more blood onto the flagstones, then rubbed his face in it. _That miserable fuck_ wasn’t likely to refer to the count. An underling, but a powerful one, perhaps the one pushing the Count to go to war. There were tensions here, perhaps ones that Nicolò could press on to his advantage. He needed to escape and get back to Yusuf: those were the only priorities that mattered.

“He won’t be up and about until well into the morning,” one of the guards finally offered. “Can’t ask him til then, I suppose. Let’s tie this Genovese shit up and leave him in with the mules til then.”

Nicolò smiled against the flagstones, letting his body go limp and helpless and easy for them to move. He was a connoisseur of mules for centuries now—he had walked with or ridden them to the Holy Land and halfway back, after all. Put him in with the beasts and he would be free in an hour, with a mount to carry him at that.

“Not with the mules,” the chief guard said sourly, dashing Nicolò’s hopes as fast as they’d risen. “Just put him in the abattoir. And make sure the door is locked.”

_The abattoir_. How fucking fitting.

That grim room, too, was fashioned out of stone, impossible to wash clean after decades of use stringing up and slaughtering animals to feed the fortress through cycle after cycle of holy feasts and mundane life. The smell of the blood lingered, and the stains, but nothing liquid, nothing useful for making himself look properly abused before they came for him in the morning. They would unlock the door and find their prisoner perfectly healed, weary but whole, and ready for questioning.

Nicolò hoped that Yusuf was either very near, with a plan, or else still very far away.

**

When the sun rose over the fortress on its hill, Yusuf brushed a bit of the ground clean, mentally made niyyah, and knelt to perform salat, reciting the bismillah with his body turned toward the south and east, the faraway lands of the Prophet. It was rare for him to be able to perform all five prayers on a given day, but he tried for dawn, at least, as much as he could.

After, he went through the steps to make tayammum, since he had no water for wudu. He placed his hands on the ground, then hit them together to clear the dust. He rubbed his face with both hands then rubbed them against each other. It calmed him, bringing himself back to his center, as always. This was the last piece of his home that he still carried with him, a piece that he could keep as long as he lived.

He was outside the village wall again, but on the opposite side this time, the fortress’ side. He had passed through the village in the night, taking only a few mouthfuls water and a length of canvas to wrap around himself like a rough cloak. He moved now in the early morning light, keeping to the shadows cast by the fortress walls until he was pressed right up to them, hidden behind a rough column a few horse-lengths from the gate, which wasn’t yet open for the day.

He couldn’t hear through the wall, of course, but a few sounds made it over the top and he caught distorted bits of them. The cries of donkeys and roosters, of course, mirroring the ones from the village. The sleepy voices of those who tended to the beasts. No heavy bootfalls yet, and no sound of plate or chainmail, though perhaps the Count’s home guard wasn’t fitted with those anyway. Boiled leather armor didn’t offer any helpful sounds, but the men who wore it could rarely keep themselves from talking at length about anything that came to mind, in Yusuf’s experience.

He wanted to scale the wall, to leap down into the courtyard, to strike down anyone between him and Nicolò. Impractical, though. He had to wait, observe, and make a proper plan.

The sun was fully above the trees when the gates finally creaked open. Women from the village had been waiting outside them for quite a while by then, and Yusuf had had to contort himself painfully behind the pillar, with the canvas over himself as a shield. He peered out of a gap between the canvas and the ground, watching with more tension than patience as the women made their way inside, talking and gossiping in a rapid, flowing dialect probably found around the base of this specific hill and nowhere else in the world.

Guards came out to stand at either side of the gates, indeed dressed in boiled leather armor and looking extremely bored about their duties. The helmets had some metal plating, Yusuf noted, biting at his thumbnail and pulling the canvas back a handspan to improve his view. Not so simple as walking up and hitting them each in the head, then waltzing inside. He never had that kind of luck.

From inside the walls, voices suddenly rose into shouts—not women’s voices calling in fear, but men’s, in consternation. Yusuf sat up a bit as the gate guards turned and ran back inside the walls. The voices were invoking the name of Nicolò’s god, Nicolò’s Christ, over and over again, so whatever was happening, it merited divine intervention, which—

Yusuf exhaled sharply and got to his feet, pulling the canvas around himself as a cloak again. If they were calling on divine intervention, it almost certainly meant that Nicolò had been exposed.

**

The man who eventually appeared in the courtyard in response to the guards’ cries was bone-thin, with dark hair and a close-cropped beard. Nicolò blinked up at him from the floor of the abattoir, wondering if he should try to approximate a bow or abasement of some kind. It hardly seemed worth it; they were almost certainly going to execute him, or at least try to, and then things were going to be very, very bad until Yusuf got there to help.

(He couldn’t make himself believe even for a moment that Yusuf would protect himself by staying away. If their positions had been switched, he would absolutely be putting himself through hell and more to get to Yusuf’s side. There was no point pretending that either of them would ever be smart enough to abandon the other and run.)

“Sir,” the head guard said warily, spitting on the flagstones before pointing at Nicolò. “Like we said, last night the others beat him unconscious. Bruised head to toe. And this morning we come out here and find him fine and whole, just as you see him.”

The thin man looked Nicolò up and down slowly. “There’s certainly enough blood,” he said after a moment. “But I see what you mean.”

“Do you think he’s a devil, Monsieur?” The guardsman eyed Nicolò, one hand on the hilt of his sword. “Or something else?”

“A loup-garou,” one of the other men said in a low voice, and murmurs of agreement spread through the little group. Nicolò bit down on his tongue. He couldn’t remember how the shapeshifters were traditionally killed in this region, but he equally couldn’t imagine it would be pleasant.

“Enough. Don’t speak to me of children’s stories.” Monsieur stepped closer to Nicolò, sending the guardsmen all a step back with a gesture. “My name is du Lac,” he said in a civil voice. “I am formerly of the Royal Archers, now in service of the Count de Rodez.”

Nicolò blinked, then took a cue from the unwavering gaze. Pretending not to understand him wasn’t likely to help; he might as well answer in kind and see if there was any room to negotiate here. “Nicolò di Genova,” he said, rubbing at the dried blood at the corner of his mouth. “I was only traveling through Cahors, Monsieur. I have no quarrel with the Count or anyone else.”

“I’m sure you don’t.” du Lac smiled slightly. “Unfortunately, Monsieur di Genova, you should have told us this before you demonstrated this demonic talent of yours.”

“I did,” Nicolò said reflexively, realizing too late that he should have refuted the _demonic_ label first. Storm ahead and do his best, then. “Your men here dismissed it.”

du Lac sighed. “I do apologize for them, Monsieur. I have not yet had enough time to impose proper discipline on the Count’s… established forces. Such as they are.”

Nicolò couldn’t think of a response, but the man was staring at him again as if he expected one. “I’m not a demon,” he said finally.

“Perhaps not.” du Lac offered another thin smile. “But we can’t take risks. I’m sure you understand. And there are… other circumstances, here at Rodez. Complex ones.”

All of the men went still at that, Nicolò noted, their eyes widening with fear. Interesting, but he hardly had time to tease it all out. “What do you intend to do with me?”

“Oh. Well. That’s up to the Count, I think.” du Lac turned away and gestured at the guardsmen. “Cover his head, bind him more securely, and bring him to the stronghold cell in the fortress. And one of you go tell the priest. The Count will want him.”

**

Yusuf, the canvas still wrapped around himself, had come through the gate during the chaos and distraction. He found a pen of goats and huddled near it, keeping his back hunched and his head down in the pose of a man bowed with years. A battered broom lay against the wall of the pen; he took that and pretended to be cleaning whenever anyone glanced his way. That wasn’t often, fortunately. The old were invisible unless a target was needed to torment and no children were handy.

He could see the cluster of guardsmen around one of the courtyard buildings, but wasn’t close enough to make out any details by eye or ear. A thin man in a dark cloak of considerably higher quality than the guardsmen’s swept out of the castle and pushed through the group of them to confront whatever was inside the building—which Yusuf hoped was Nicolò, and hoped was anything else, at once. Finding him would be good, but finding him at the focus of an armed force…

Well, that would merely be _typical_.

The guardsmen were still for a while, watching and listening to whatever was going on. Yusuf continued to stand and pretend to sweep, halfheartedly, until one of the kid goats came over and began chewing at his canvas. “Away, you,” Yusuf whispered, poking at him with the broom. “I have important things to do, here.”

The goat was unimpressed and undeterred. Yusuf poked it a bit more firmly in the ribs, then looked up as the fine-cloaked man swept by again, making his way back to the castle. Yusuf tracked him to the inner gate, then looked back at the guardsmen, wondering if somehow their luck would fall kindly enough that they had all decided to set Nicolò free, or at least leave a nice broad gap that Yusuf could walk through to his side.

No luck, of course. Neither of them had had any luck to speak of since before they died for the first time, unless immortality could be considered luck of its own. They had had a few grand debates about that with Andromache and Quynh, over the years…

The guardsmen emerged from the room, half-dragging a man’s form with hands bound behind his back and a sack over his head. Yusuf recognized the bearing and body even if he hadn’t also known the clothes. His Nicolò, being force-marched across the courtyard to the inner gates and onward to the castle.

Yusuf gathered himself, drawing the broom up into a quarterstaff hold. Six men, with Nicolò at their center; men who were trained, but not well; all he would have to do was get the bag off Nicolò’s head or break one of his arms in such a way that he could extract it from the bonds. Draw a breath, center himself, take the first stride without impediment of thought—

“You there!” A hand descended on his shoulder, gripping hard enough that his nerves spasmed and his grip loosened on the broom. His assailant spun him around, the canvas falling back from his head and revealing him as neither old and helpless nor born to this piece of ground.

“What do you think you’re doing!” the man shouted, shaking Yusuf roughly. “Some Spaniard, are you? Here stealing goats? Typical of a Spaniard, a common thief! Guards! Guards! We have a thief here, stealing the Count’s goats!”

The guards, blessedly, were too occupied with their prisoner to pay any mind. Yusuf spared a quick thought to hope that Nicolò had heard the shouting and knew exactly who was passing as a Spaniard and cavorting with the goats before he extracted himself from the man’s grip and broke into a run.

**

The stronghold cell, it turned out, was the cleanest and most decent of those in the fortress’ dungeon. Nicolò appreciated the courtesy. He had the comfort of a cot with a straw-tick mattress for the hours that passed between the guardsmen pushed him inside and when du Lac came for him.

Actually, before du Lac, there was a pale-faced servant girl with a bucket of water, a rough cloth, and a kind of chemise and robe for him to change into after he’d cleaned the worst of the dirt and blood off his body. A guard accompanied her in and removed the rope from Nicolò’s wrists, then left the two of them alone, saying something curt to her under his breath as he exited. She stood by the door, eyes averted, and Nicolò didn’t shame her further by trying to speak to her. Once he was clean and dressed, she took the bucket, cloth, and his discarded clothing and hurried away, while he returned again to the cot to wait.

du Lac entered the cell with a faint smile. “Monsieur di Genova. I presume that you feel a bit better now that you are clean.”

“I do appreciate it. Thank you.” Nicolò held his hands up. “Am I to take this as a sign that I am no longer a prisoner?”

“I’m afraid your liberty is not yet restored, Monsieur. But perhaps you might think of yourself as more a guest than a prisoner?”

Nicolò tried to smile but could manage only to grit his teeth. “A guest without consent or liberty, Monsieur?”

“We live in difficult times, my friend.” du Lac folded his hands in front of him and considered Nicolò for a moment. “It does not amuse me to dance around matters or pretend that certain truths do not exist. May I be blunt?”

“I, too, would prefer it.”

“Excellent.” He smiled faintly. “You said, before, that you are not a demon.”

“It is the truth, Monsieur.”

“It was my duty, of course, to take word of what happened, and what you said, to my Lord the Count.” du Lac hesitated for a moment, his eyes shifting focus to something far away. “My Lord is… undergoing a period of some personal difficulty, at present. His child, his only heir, is unwell, and this weighs heavily on the Count’s mind.”

Nicolò nodded, mustering sympathy for the child, if not the men holding him here. “I will pray for the child’s welfare.”

“That’s very kind.” du Lac’s mouth twisted in a painful approximation of a smile. “You may be called upon for more than prayer, though, my friend.”

Nicolò thought of Yusuf, hoping he was nearby. This had happened before, and would happen again, people begging them for healing and grace, if not for immortality itself, these things that had attached themselves to their bodies without their request and that could not be passed on by will or whim. “I am not a physician, Monsieur. Prayer is all that I can offer.”

“Matters of prayer are quite well covered already, my friend. We have a young priest here at the castle. A man of great faith. Great passion.” The set of du Lac’s mouth indicated that faith and passion weren’t worth much in terms of his own favor. “He has reminded the Count that demons are, after all, only angels fallen from God’s grace.”

Nicolò frowned. “I… I suppose that is true, Monsieur.”

“So if you are not a demon, you must be an angel. One who fell, but not completely. Only to the Earth.” du Lac twitched one shoulder in an uncomfortable shrug. “Or so says our good père.”

Nicolò shook his head, a helpless laugh tearing its way from his throat. “For all that I am no demon, I am even less an angel, Monsieur.”

“I believe you,” du Lac said, turning to the cell door. “But I have only one of my Lord the Count’s ears, and the other is held by a man of faith that could scald the earth from here to Rome.” He paused, one hand on the door. “He will be here to see you himself, shortly. I suggest before then that you do, indeed, pray.”

**

Having fled the overprotective goatkeeper, Yusuf hid in the half-loft over the same abattoir that had held Nicolò earlier. It was used as a storage space, and everything in it was coated thickly in dust, so he had some degree of hope that he could go undiscovered here long enough to make a new plan.

The day was passing rapidly, with late-afternoon sunlight slanting through the gaps in the roof and door. He lay on his back, keeping his breath to a slow rhythm, willing his body to rest and husband its energy. He would have to look for water again after dark, and perhaps a chicken or pigeon that could be quickly broken down with his beltknife and eaten raw. He could keep going unfed, of course, but it was easier to think and act without the distraction of gnawing hunger.

(Once, he and Andromache and Nicolò had been trapped in a cave by a rockfall, and it had taken Quynh weeks to force a local village to help her clear the rubble away. The three of them had been revenants by the time they emerged, skeletons under tight-stretched skin, teeth bared like beasts, but still alive, still themselves, crawling out of the last layer of stones and sending the villagers fleeing, screaming, while Quynh laughed and cut a cow’s throat, letting them scramble to put their mouths over the hot fresh-flowing blood, craving the iron and protein and salt of it…

They told stories in that country now, of monsters that crawled out of their graves craving blood. Or so he’d heard. It was a long time ago, and hard to remember exactly where they had been.)

He pulled himself back to the present. A plan, Yusuf. Review the facts and make a plan.

Item: he was on his own for this, with no allies, no weapons but his beltknife and the short sword at his side. Perhaps another broomstick quarterstaff, if he poked around in the corners of the abattoir.

Item: Nicolò had been taken into the castle proper. That would make reaching him a great deal more complicated, and their escape even more than that.

Yusuf rubbed his jaw and concentrated on his breathing again for a few moments. Very well. So it was complicated; every culture had its story of a complicated knot that could best be freed by cutting right through it. He would be the blade that cut through Rodez.

He slipped down the ladder from the loft and peered through one of the cracks in the door. The sun was low enough to allow for the evening prayer. He knelt and performed salat, whispering his prayer on the barest breath. Then he sat with his back to the wall, waiting for the people of the fortress to retreat to their places in the castle and village for sleep, and silence to fall.

Once it did, he opened the door just enough to slip out and followed the shadows around the edge of the courtyard. There was a half-full bucket of water left outside the cattle’s pen, where he slaked his thirst. Wild birds huddled around the dovecote, so distracted by their gluttony over spilled grain that he easily took two with his bare hands and broke their necks with a single twist each.

And—proof that perhaps luck had not completely abandoned him, as much as he always wondered—someone had left a dark cloak hanging outside the dovecote as well. He took that and the birds back to the abattoir loft, where he ate in silence and darkness, save only for the sounds of the bones snapping before he sucked the marrow.

He wrapped himself in the cloak and canvas both, and lay blinking into the dark. He had put together a rough sketch of a plan while eating. Perhaps it wasn’t one that Nicolò would have thought much of, or even Andromache, but Quynh—Quynh would have _loved_ it.

Inshallah, they would tell her the story in Trier, he and Nicolò together.

_Nicolò_ , he thought, rubbing his thumb against the hilt of the sword he wore even in his sleep. _Hiyati, be sure, I am coming for you._

**

When evening fell and Yusuf was thinking of him, Nicolò was lying on the cot in the holding cell, holy water drying in his hair and on the chemise, a branded mark of the cross healing itself on the back of his hand.

The priest of Rodez, Père Estienne, was indeed an enthusiastic man, afire with belief to the point where Nicolò wanted to take him by the shoulders and shake him until his teeth rattled. Nicolò had been conversing with God for more than three hundred years. The ever-shifting canon of the Church simply could not hold his attention the way it did for Estienne. He was beginning—only beginning, o Santa Maria—to see past the trappings to the bones underneath, the consistent truths, the parts that mattered.

The père had not come to the cell for theological debate, however. He had come to test Nicolò for himself, to establish him as angel or demon or common monster. It had been a process of several hours, which tested Nicolò’s patience as much as anything else.

Prayers over him, pressing a rosary into his hands and requesting that he complete a full cycle of it, flicking holy water over him and examining the skin for signs of burning. Questioning him on tenets of the faith—and there Nicolò did nearly find himself in trouble, because those shifts in canon between his own time and now were just enough to make the priest’s eyes narrow. Still. He held his own, enough to establish that he was not a demon sent to tempt the Count or the people of Rodez down the path to hell.

Then began the more intensive tests, to prove his resiliency to harm, which in Père Estienne’s eyes could only come from God. Nicolò had worried that question back and forth for three centuries now, and still not come to an answer, but after drowning him in a bucket twice, cutting holy writ into his chest and watching it heal, and branding him with the cross several times, the priest had declared himself satisfied.

He had left the cell in a great state of excitement, planning to, as far as Nicolò could tell, immediately compose a letter to Rome telling of his capture of a true angel, and request immediate assistance from as high-ranking and specialized a person as the Vatican had tucked away in a cabinet somewhere. Nicolò could imagine a wizened old man, a hermit like Celestine V brought to Rome against his will, being dispatched to Rodez even more against his will to present expertise on angels to this puppy of a priest, under the watchful eye of du Lac.

Because yes, du Lac had been there the whole time, watching silently from the corner by the door. Nicolò wondered what he thought of either of the performances going on in front of him—Nicolò’s of endurance, and Père Estienne’s of unbounded, ecstatic faith.

Nicolò shifted uneasily on the mattress. Something about du Lac’s face as he watched them lingered in his mind and the pit of his stomach. There was an interest there that wasn’t purely in the line of duty, but also wasn’t of the baser passions that Nicolò understood. He was quite sure that du Lac did not wish to touch him or take him as Yusuf did. But certainly du Lac wanted _something_ , or thought he might, and was watching closely to see if what he wanted was truly there. Nicolò wished he knew what it was. If he knew, he might protect himself.

The cross brand had healed. Nicolò closed his eyes and willed himself to sink into sleep. Yusuf would come for him soon. He did not doubt that.

**

Yusuf left the abattoir before sunrise. The fact that it had gone empty and unused for a day and a half was dangerous; surely the Count would require fresh-slaughtered meat for his table soon, and Yusuf had no desire to be caught by men with butchering knives in their hands.

He folded the canvas into a pad across his shoulders, and wore the dark cloak over it, with the hood up. It altered his silhouette from a young fighting man to something distorted, that casual eyes might fill in as an older man or a woman with a dowager’s hump. He changed his gait, too, walking around the castle to the kitchen entrance with a careful, hesitant stride.

Let him be thought an old servant seeking a warm place by the fire. It wouldn’t work in stronger light, but at this hour of the morning, he had a chance at it.

The kitchen was still quiet when he slipped inside. A woman was setting bread, while a sleepy boy poked at the fire. Yusuf kept to the shadows, hesitating in the corridor where the slaughtered meat would be brought in, until he was sure that both were deeply engrossed in their tasks. Then he slipped along the wall, feeling his way along until he reached a door that opened for him easily. A commonly-used room, then; he couldn’t stay here long, but it would give him a moment.

It was fully dark in the room, but the smell gave it away—the stillroom, all herbs and healing concoctions. He would have to be careful that the smell didn’t cling to him and follow him through the castle as a perfume that advertised every step.

A stillroom, though, meant a few small, handy things, and sure enough, after a few moments of carefully groping about in the dark he had found small, sharp knives and a length of twine to stash away in his pocket.

There was a back door to the room as well, opening into a corridor deeper inside the castle. He exited that way, making his way along soft-stepping like a cat, straining his ears in the darkness for any sound.

“Has the baby died yet?”

Yusuf jerked to a stop, flattening himself against the wall. The words came from an open door a few strides ahead, dim candlelight falling into the corridor.

“No, the poor thing is still holding on. God have mercy and take it soon, though, the longer it lingers the harder her Ladyship takes it. The Count is half-mad with trying to comfort her.”

“Shh, shh, Jehanne. Don’t say things like that, the walls have ears.”

_Only one pair, and Moorish_ , Yusuf thought. He wished he could assure them that he took no offense at hearing their lord described as mad.

“His Lordship was up all night with the priest and the Archer.” Jehanne sounded uncertain. “Something about that man the guards brought in yesterday and locked away in the dungeon. I don’t know what a priest would have to do with a prisoner, do you?”

Yusuf’s breath caught in his chest. _Nicolò._

“Not our place to question, that’s all I know.” The second woman sighed. “I must get to the kitchen, the old goat will be looking. You get yourself back to the nursery. Pray for the poor thing to find peace, one way or the other.”

Yusuf held as still as a shadow himself as the two young women hurried out of the room and down the corridor. After a few moments he followed the direction Jehanne had taken, leading toward the noble family’s rooms.

**

In the morning, Père Estienne came back. He was alone this time, du Lac nowhere to be seen, and he carried a basket, which he set on the floor near the cot with an eager gleam to his eyes.

“Good morning,” he said, inclining his head toward Nicolò. “It is good to see you again.”

It seemed politic to be polite. “Likewise,” Nicolò murmured, folding his hands in his lap. He still wore the chemise, and the robe was twisted over his lap as a kind of half-blanket. He wished he’d had enough warning that the priest was coming to put it on; he would appreciate even the little bit of useless armor for this meeting.

Estienne studied him for a moment, frowning. “You need to wash yourself,” he said, and turned back to the cell door, calling to the guards to bring a basin, a cloth, water. When they did, he stood back and gestured emphatically at Nicolò. “Wash your face and hands, please. Under your arms and at your groin, too, if you wish. It’s important that you be clean before taking the Host.”

Nicolò faltered, nearly dropping the cloth into the basin. “The Host, Père?”

“Yes, of course.” He opened the basket and produced each of the elements needed to hold Communion there in the cell.

Nicolò wiped slowly at his face. “I would not think it necessary for an angel to take Communion.”

The priest’s mouth twisted in a smile that made cold dash along Nicolò’s spine. “Well, my child, we have not yet established your status to my satisfaction. And _un ange forcé à prendre une forme mortelle_ … who’s to say how such a being might react to such things?” He glanced up, studying the motions of the cloth. “Behind your ears, too, please.”

Nicolò obeyed. “Am I to meet the Count today?”

“It’s not yet decided.” Estienne lit a candle he had produced from the basket, then made the sign of the cross over it. “I hope so. And whatever your status, I couldn’t allow you to stand before the Count without having taken the Host and proven that you are, at the very least, not a creature of hell.”

“I thought that’s what we did yesterday. All the business with the holy water, and the cross brands, and the rosary.”

“The body and blood of our savior is the final test.” Estienne’s voice had grown curt. He took the cloth from Nicolò’s hands and set it and the basin aside. “Pray with me, my child.”

Nicolò clasped his hand and bowed his head, but the prayer he whispered under his breath bore little relation to the one Estienne declaimed into the musty air of the cell. Nicolò’s belonged to a different time and place, an understanding of the holy that was recognizable as kin but still separate from what drove the French priest’s ecstasy.

The boy within Nicolò, who grew fainter and less distinct with each passing year, still longed to ask God the Father and all the Saints to save him. To free him from this place. Nicolò the man knew better than to ask such things anymore.

“Very good, my child.” Estienne turned to the chalice and monstrance. “Do you have any sins to confess?”

_Not to you_ , Nicolò thought, but said only a brief, “No.”

“Ah, we are all sinners, all of us of this earth. God will cleanse you Himself if you will not speak.” The priest turned to him. “Kneel, _mon ange_ , if so you are. Bare your soul to God and take this blessing.”

**

Yusuf moved from recess to recess and crevice to crevice, lingering in chilly shadows pressed against damp stone, moving with maddening slowness to be sure that the movement would go unnoticed. When he finally reached the Count’s family’s chambers, there were wall-hangings and draperies that both muffled sound and offered him further hiding places. Bless the miserable design of these places; he thought of the airy, light-filled fortresses of more southern lands and how he would have been gutted a dozen times by now.

He could hear the servant girl Jehanne’s voice from inside the next room down from where he waited behind an elaborately embroidered wall-hanging. She was speaking in a singsong, soothing voice, as if to a child, and Yusuf assumed this meant he had found the nursery where the Count’s heir suffered from whatever illness afflicted it. Children were delicate creatures in a capricious world; their lives were precious but easily lost. Neither his own faith or the Christian one had any explanation for it that he could determine except that whatever happened was the result of holy will.

“Please, my Lady,” Jehanne said, her voice shifting to a different timbre. “Won’t you eat something? The bread is very good, if nothing else tempts your stomach.”

“Thank you.” The Countess’ voice was low and thick with weariness. Yusuf frowned behind the drapery; had the woman sat awake all night with her infant? Unusual for a noblewoman of these lands. “I will try to eat some, I promise.”

“I can send to the kitchen for anything else that tempts you, my Lady. You must keep up your strength.”

“I wish that any strength I might have could go to my son.” The Countess and the girl both fell quiet for a moment, and Yusuf found himself counting his own breaths, wondering what the scene in the room looked like. “Is there any word from my lord husband, Jehanne?”

“Not… not that I was given, Madame. I’ll send a boy to ask Monsieur du Lac.”

“Might the boy not ask the seneschal? Or my lord’s valet?” Yusuf’s eyes narrowed; the Countess’ voice had gone distinctly waspish. Perhaps this was a weakness, a rift between the castle’s chatelaine and the military advisor. It wasn’t a rift with an obvious use to him, but it couldn’t be overlooked, either. “Why must we all dance to du Lac’s tune from dawn to midnight, every day?”

“I’m sorry, my Lady. I will send to the seneschal.”

“Send for Père Estienne, as well. I wish to take confession and Communion. I want his guidance while I pray.”

Jehanne hurried out of the room and Yusuf held himself motionless, breathless, until she was gone. He could hear footsteps moving inside the nursery; the Countess sounded restless, moving away—toward the windows?—and back again.

“My little love,” she said, her voice low. Speaking to the child, of course; Yusuf closed his eyes. It would be better to tune this out, to give them a moment of privacy, but there was simply no way to do that without risking himself and Nicolò by extension. Inshallah they would all be forgiven, now or at the end of their days.

“Your father thinks he has found magic to cure you,” her voice went on. “I do not trust magic, even if the priest says it comes from God. I do not trust that strange men can fall from the sky with healing in their blood and be called angels.”

Ice ran down Yusuf’s spine. Nicolò.

**

The ways of the Church had grown no less complicated since Nicolò’s time. Not that he expected they would; he had learned enough of human nature to see how things set aside as too precious to be exposed to sunlight and air tended to twist and grow in on themselves, turning into something very different from what they’d started as.

Still, he was surprised by the enthusiasm that Père Estienne brought to scourging. It lacked a certain amount of dignity.

“Look at you.” The priest stood at the center of the cell, stripped to his own chemise to avoid staining the costly vestments, which had been a wise choice, because he was now spattered with blood from ankles to shoulders. Nicolò’s blood, which also stained the floor and the walls and the barbed scourge that Estienne had dropped to the floor.

Nicolò rested his head on his crossed wrists and concentrated on breathing. There was no point in telling the priest that he could hardly look at his own back, or the raw mess that currently approximated it. He could feel himself healing, the pain of skin stretching and knitting itself back together, the agony of air on exposed tissue and bone slowly easing as it was safely encased again. He hoped Estienne enjoyed the show. From the ecstatic noises the priest was making, his hope was more than fulfilled.

“Truly, you are a holy creature,” Estienne said. He ran his fingers through Nicolò’s hair, as if praising a horse. Nicolò dragged in another breath and stared fixedly at the bit of the floor he could see beneath his wrists.

“We have prayed together, we have purified you.” Estienne caressed him again. “I will have a basin brought now to clean you, we will pray again, and then we will both dress to see the Count.”

Nicolò turned his head slightly, not quite enough to see the man but enough to indicate he was trying. “Oh? I’m to be brought in the noble presence?”

“Of course, my child.” Another caress. Nicolò bit back on telling him how many times over he could be his grandfather. “Your gifts have been devoutly prayed for. Your arrival is a sign of God’s favor of the Count and his family.”

“My arrival is because the count burned Cahors and kidnapped every man within it that he could.”

The priest’s hand went still, and Nicolò cursed himself for not holding his tongue. If this prompted another round of scourging, he was going to waste more time growing skin instead of trying to escape.

“God rarely places a smooth path before us,” Estienne said at last. “This was the route He chose to bring you to Rodez. We do not question His ways.”

Nicolò nodded and closed his eyes again. After a moment, the priest stepped away, calling for water and clean clothing for them both, as well as his vestments. Nicolò kept still, continued to breathe, and longed with all his heart for Yusuf.

**

Yusuf was still outside the nursery, listening to the grim-faced military man, du Lac, try to convince the Countess to make herself presentable for her husband.

“We have captured a prisoner of great interest, my Lady,” du Lac said in a tone of exaggerated patience. Yusuf could imagine the condescending gaze that went with it; he had seen it aimed at himself enough times in these lands. “Your noble husband wishes you to attend him, with the babe.”

“My son needs rest and quiet, not being dragged in front of the entire castle so his father can demand that a prisoner heal him with magic.” The Countess’ voice had grown ragged since Yusuf first heard it, between her discussions with the maids and the monologues over the child’s cradle whenever they were alone. “Oh, yes, don’t look surprised. I have my own ears around this castle. I’m not the ignorant child you would have me be. I know what’s going on, and I have no intention of cooperating with whatever madness you’ve put in his head.”

“I assure you, my Lady, I have done nothing of the sort.”

“I have called for the priest multiple times today and been ignored, du Lac. Are you keeping me from confession and Communion? Are you attempting to damn my soul?” Her voice rose wildly, veering toward a shriek, and Yusuf winced. The woman was pushing herself past endurance. She would be reduced to weeping madness soon and have to be put to her bed.

“I have kept nothing from you.” du Lac now sounded as if he were speaking through clenched teeth. “Père Estienne has been occupied with the prisoner. I’m sure he will apologize _most_ beautifully, as he always does when he offends your Ladyship.”

Yusuf raised an eyebrow at the back of the tapestry. Layers and layers to the politics here; the game pieces were squabbling amongst themselves. No love lost between du Lac and the priest; the Countess trusted the priest and disdained du Lac, the Count listened to both—and therefore they were likely jockeying for the place closest to his ear. The Countess blamed du Lac for this business with Nicolò, but it seemed to Yusuf that it was far more the priest’s doing; which was more likely to think of fallen angels, after all?

A heart and mind burdened with grief and fear for an infant could hardly expect to rely on logic, though. And Yusuf had seen enough of how noble women were raised here to know that she had been trained to always turn to and believe the agents of her faith, no matter what. She was all but incapable of believing the castle priest to be anything but pure in thought and deed.

Yusuf was entirely capable. From du Lac’s tone, he agreed.

The Countess dismissed du Lac quite sharply. Yusuf remained still until the man had stormed off down the hall, then slipped away from the wall and followed him. He touched the cord in his pocket; a garrote if he needed it, and in this place, he couldn’t know if he would until there was blood on his hands.

**

The blood was cleaned from Nicolò’s body and Père Estienne prayed over him for a while. It was a strange experience; the priest had also cleaned himself, and neither of them had dressed again yet, so they were both nude, Estienne standing over Nicolò’s prone form. Nicolò thought of his childhood priest, the man who had patiently taught him of God’s will and Christ’s sacrifice. He could picture the disapproving set of the old man’s mouth, and the thrashing he would have given Estienne, double the kind he gave the boys of the neighborhood when their pranks and games spread into the churchyard.

He would have to go back to Genova soon, find the old church in the old neighborhood, light a candle for that long-dead priest. He had been a good man.

Estienne sketched the sign of the cross over him and clapped his hands, gesturing at the bored-looking servant to bring in the clothing for them both. What a life this young man must have, Nicolò thought, carrying out the père’s whims, if he could look this bored about the situation. Nicolò took a clean chemise from him and pulled it over his head, then tied the lacing at the neck and sat on the edge of the bed while the servant helped Estienne into his own chemise and vestments.

The priest produced a rosary from somewhere in the layers of cloth and slipped it over Nicolò’s head, studying him carefully for a moment. “Good,” he said at last. “You must show humility before the Count.”

Nicolò raised an eyebrow at him. “Why should a fallen angel show humility before a mortal man, whose title means nothing before the eyes of God?”

Estienne smiled tightly, lips stretching without revealing his teeth. “Because if you don’t, the Count will be quite cross with both of us. I have worked very hard to earn his trust and obedience, and having that unraveled in an hour by what may be a fallen angel but may just as easily be a sorcerer, an incubus, or the Devil himself, is quite simply impermissible. I observed you while I tested you, and while your body may heal, I noted very well that you _do_ experience pain, dear creature. Whatever you are, you are able to suffer. And you _will_ suffer if you damage my work. The Count does not keep a torturer at hand, but one can be called in with little trouble. Even without one, a bear-baiting is easily arranged, and wolves or hogs kept hungry will gnaw whatever is put before them. Do you understand?”

Nicolò blinked at him. “That was a well-turned speech, Monsieur. Were I less innocent, I would think you have practiced these thoughts before.”

Estienne’s smile twisted. “You will refer to me as père. Jean, bind his hands.”

The servant produced an elaborate pair of handcuffs. Nicolò permitted himself to be bound; while he could kill them both, the cell door was locked, and the guards in the corridor had heard Estienne’s speech about ways of punishing him as well as he had. He wouldn’t fight until he had a line of escape before him or Yusuf at his side.

**

du Lac’s progress through the castle led Yusuf to a small room that seemed to be a kind of office. The closest alcove was ten paces back down the corridor, so Yusuf couldn’t clearly see what the man was doing, but stolen glances showed him sitting at a table, consulting scrolls and documents before putting them into several boxes and folios around him. A man with a sword at his belt and the bearing of a soldier came down the corridor and joined du Lac, sending Yusuf deeper into the shadows and unable to watch or listen while they spoke for perhaps half an hour.

When the soldier came down the corridor again, du Lac walked with him, wearing a deep green cloak that Yusuf hadn’t seen before. Yusuf waited for them to turn the corner before he followed them, ears tuned to the fall of their boots on the stone floor.

“The priest,” he heard the soldier say, but the rest of the sentence was lost. “Gosse will be stationed in the balcony,” he added, and Yusuf smiled to himself. This man’s bearing and comfort with du Lac showed him to be a far more professional soldier than the Count’s men who had swept through Cahors; he would wager boldly that he and this Gosse were du Lac’s own men, who had come here with him from wherever he’d previously been posted. A miniature force within the walls, protecting du Lac’s back before anything else. It was a wise move. Had Yusuf ever been tempted to take his strange thing of a life and declare himself a mercenary for hire, he would be sure to do the same.

“Good,” du Lac said briefly, with a nod of dismissal. Yusuf pressed himself to the wall and made himself still as the bricks, breathless, while the soldier peeled off down a branching corridor and du Lac opened a door that led into the castle’s great hall.

Yusuf only caught a glimpse before the door closed again, but it was enough to confirm several things. The door opened about halfway along the length of the hall, to the left hand of the chair where the Count sat. A smaller chair, presumably for the Countess, was empty, as was a baby’s basket on a table beside it. A handful of bored-looking functionaries loitered in the hall, along with about half of the guardsmen, a number of servants, and a few wide-eyed villagers who either had been summoned to take eyewitness accounts back or had wandered in by sheer chance and carelessness.

There was no sign of the priest, or of Nicolò. Yusuf still had a bit of time.

He pulled his hood up over his head and moved quickly down the corridor, striding boldly now on the theory that the men of power were otherwise occupied, and no one else would care to question him. He needed to find a way up to the balcony that the soldier had mentioned. An elevated view was always a tactical gift.

**

The Count de Rodez was clearly a man deeply enmeshed in grief. His skin had a grayish cast and his eyes were sunken hollows in his face. Nicolò allowed himself some compassion, even as he was pushed to his knees before the Count’s chair, his hands still bound behind him.

“This is the fallen angel, Père?” His voice was low and rich, and held the potential to be booming, but was weary. Nicolò turned his gaze to the floor at the man’s feet and waited for the priest’s response.

“My tests and prayers say as much, my Lord.” Estienne’s voice, by contrast, rang out too loudly in the hall. Arrogant yet frantic, Nicolò thought, studying the lines of the flagstones. Too desperate to claim his space. The Archer, du Lac, had more patience. He would wait for the priest to slip, then take everything he wanted.

Nicolò wondered what use du Lac saw in him. The way the soldier had watched him before said that he had fit Nicolò into his calculations _somewhere_. A symbol to rally around? Something to force failure out of, to show that the priest’s claims were untrue? Everyone Nicolò met in his immortal life had their own plans, and believed that everyone around them was to be fit in and or popped free as needed. The longer Nicolò lived, the more it seemed that he could see these overlapping patterns of desire and separate himself from them.

“You believe he can heal my son.” Nicolò glanced up to find the Count looking at the empty chair and cradle beside him. His voice rose on the next words, some of the timbre of a man trained on the battlefield filling it out. “Where are the Countess and my heir? I asked you to bring them here quite some time ago, did I not?”

“Her Ladyship refuses to come, sir.” Nicolò couldn’t see the man who replied, but he did not sound at all happy to be delivering news that his lord and master did not wish to hear. “She says the young heir must rest and not be paraded before the court.”

The Count sat very still for a moment, and when he spoke again, there was a steel in his voice that Nicolò had come to know well over the too-long years of his life. This was a man very near to the edge of breaking his own humanity. “Then bring the child without her, and if she attempts to stop you, you may put her in chains.”

“As you say, my Lord.” The man sounded even less happy. Nicolò couldn’t blame him. Lying hands on a lady of noble birth could easily come back to haunt him, even if it was done under orders.

“Tell her I will not be denied the chance to save my son’s life by her stubbornness.” The Count gestured sharply, then turned his gaze back to Nicolò, who met his eyes for a moment before looking back to the floor. “He doesn’t look like an angel to me, Père. I see only a man.”

“They must take a form that our minds can bear in order to walk among us, my Lord.” The priest’s voice was still too loud, but attempting a more soothing tone, now. Nicolò wished him the best of luck at it. “We have subjected his body to all but mortal injury, and he has healed before our eyes. I have treated him with the cross, with holy water, with prayer, and he has flinched from none of it. I have prayed deeply on the matter and I believe the evidence points toward an angel, not a demon or a witch.”

“All but mortal injury?” The Count shifted in his chair. “Why not that as well?”

The priest hesitated for a moment, and Nicolò closed his eyes, bracing himself for yet another skewering with a sword. So many times, over the years. So many deaths.

“God may have placed him in this form only for its mortal duration, my Lord,” Estienne said finally. “Unfortunately, that’s not something that can be tested, because if it’s proven right, all is lost.”

“Wise enough, I suppose.” The Count sat quietly for a moment. Nicolò heard a door opening, footsteps entering, the low unhappy sounds of an infant in distress. “I did not tell you to bring her as well this time,” the Count said sharply.

“I will not allow my son out of my sight,” came the high, wild voice of, presumably, the Countess. “If you insist on tormenting him for no purpose, he will at least have his mother at his side to comfort him.”

“There is no torment, woman. I want only to save the boy. Can you not see that he’s fading by the day?”

“Then that is God’s will, and we must yield to it!”

“God has sent us a sign of hope.” Nicolò heard someone snap their fingers; likely the Count, because suddenly there was a tug at the bonds on his wrists and he was urged to shuffle forward on his knees, toward the great chair. “Père Estienne, tell us what you think should be done with this creature, if he is the blessed being that you claim.”

“I’ve brought everything needed, my Lord.” The priest’s hand slid along Nicolò’s hair, stroking him like a favored pet. “We can begin immediately.”

**

In order to find a place in the balcony far enough to avoid interfering with du Lac’s man, Yusuf had been forced to make his way toward the back of the hall. He couldn’t see much of Nicolò where he knelt on the floor, only the priest and the guardsman standing over him. The acoustics of the hall had been planned precisely so that the Count’s voice could carry, though, and he could hear every word.

He felt for the Countess, truly. The tension between fearing for her child, trusting her priest, and not knowing what guided her husband’s motives most—it would make anyone react on first impulse rather than any kind of logic. The priest was the one suggesting that her son be the subject of this experiment, but her faith would not allow her to blame him, so she lashed out at her husband instead. How nonsensical, how utterly human.

He could only spare so much sympathy for her, though, because the men driving her to distraction held Nicolò in their hands. His life, for what that mattered; his freedom, his well-being, which were of more immediate emphasis to Yusuf. Nicolò’s well-being was everything to him.

The priest was unpacking a basket onto a low table at the front of the hall. Yusuf couldn’t see every detail, but some of the items were clear: a bottle of wine, a bowl, a stoneware jug, a knife. The knife, while utterly predictable, worried him anyway.

Nicolò looked up from the floor, his face pale and drawn in the uncertain light of the hall. He looked tired, Yusuf thought, and more resigned than angry. Yusuf knew his love well enough to read that look, even from this distance. This was the sort of thing that was going to happen to them, over and over again, as long as they lived in this world where what they had become didn’t fit with what was supposed to be. The penance they would pay for their long lives was this suffering at the hands of others, every time they were discovered, in a spiraling repetition through the centuries. 

Yusuf wished for Andromache’s bow and a quiver of arrows. Archery had never been his best skill, but from this height and this distance he could clear out most of the front of the hall before anyone mustered a response, and perhaps that would be enough for Nicolò to escape. If he _would_ escape, instead of coming to Yusuf’s side so they could die together here as well, like in every other place they had done so over the years...

The priest was blessing the items on the table, one by one. Nicolò was watching him with an expression of mild interest, more on a theological level than a personal one, at Yusuf’s guess. They could talk about it later, inshallah. How Christian blessings had changed in three hundred years, and what Nicolò thought of that.

“I think you’ve prayed enough,” the Count said suddenly, his voice ringing through the hall. “Get on with it.”

The priest faltered for a moment, then lowered his hands. “As you say, my Lord.”

“What do you need from him?” The Count jerked his head toward Nicolò. “Does he need to lay hands on the boy?”

“We will try that, of course.” The priest picked up the bowl. “But I believe we should begin with an infusion of fluids for the child.”

“Fluids?” The Countess spoke as if in a daze. “Whatever does that mean?”

“Blood. Saliva. Perhaps also sweat and the physical emissions, but we can begin with blood and saliva, as the easiest to collect.” He nodded at the table again. “We’ll dilute them with water and a bit of wine and honey, to make them palatable for the babe. Taking the holy creature’s essence into his body will pass to him the strength of God’s grace and light.”

Yusuf cursed himself again for not having a bow, or a collection of throwing knives. Surely his anger would carry them far enough to strike down all of these people nodding calmly at the idea of feeding blood and spit to a child—and if that didn’t work, adding sweat and semen to the mixture. Why couldn’t they speak to their Moorish neighbors long enough to hear about the works of Ibn Sina and those who followed him? Why couldn’t they—why must they—

The priest held the bowl before Nicolò’s face, and Nicolò obediently spat into it, his head lowered so that Yusuf couldn’t even guess at his expression. The priest caressed Nicolò’s hair again, and Yusuf clenched his jaw, the possessiveness in the gesture rankling him even though he knew it was meaningless, empty, a child playing with things he didn’t begin to understand.

The priest lifted the knife, and Yusuf looked away.

**

Being bled was hardly of interest to Nicolò anymore. The murmurs and shouts from the court as the wound closed before their eyes were annoying, as was the slide of pain over his wrist as the priest cut, but none of it was enough to distract him from what mattered.

Yusuf was there.

He’d caught the barest glimpse from the corner of his eye—barely more than the sense that there _was_ a shadow in the balcony—but after so many years, he was attuned to that man. If he hadn’t seen him, he would eventually have breathed deep enough and _smelled_ him, even in this crowded hall. He would have discerned his heartbeat from among the others. He knew that Yusuf was there, and that was that.

He would put up with a great deal more than being bled, and prayed over, and shouted at by startled Frenchmen, knowing that Yusuf was there, and that soon they would be reunited.

He watched Père Estienne blend and warm the mixture, then coat a spoon with it and force it into the child’s mouth. The only person he felt pity for in this castle was that baby, who had asked for none of this, who was blameless and without arrogance or pride. Perhaps he could feel something for the Countess as well, if not for how she gazed at Estienne like he was touched by God instead of merely a student of His will.

_Find more mercy in yourself, Nicolò. Mercy is vital in lives as long as ours, or else in time we will turn to stone..._

The baby wailed, trying to pull away from the intruding implement. _Mercy_ , Nicolò thought, and he began to speak.

“This won’t help the child. He doesn’t need blood and spit and wine.”

The priest glared at him, but the Countess turned at his words, looking at him with wide, desperate eyes.

“What does he need, angel? Please. Tell me. Whatever it is, I will give anything.”

Nicolò dragged in a breath. Perhaps he had judged this woman too harshly. Mercy, mercy. “My blood cannot heal, my Lady. I know this. I don’t… I don’t know exactly what your child needs. I haven’t examined him, and I am no physician.”

Her shoulders dropped, despair crossing her features. “Then nothing can be done?”

“You must find a physician,” he said, trying to put urgency in his voice, to draw her attention fully back to him again. “Perhaps from Al-Andalus, one who has studied the works of Avicenna.”

“You would have me entrust my child to a pagan?” She was looking at him again, fear and the most delicate hope warring in her eyes.

“I have seen physicians trained like this achieve great cures.” He could not promise miracles. He swore to himself, decades ago, when he realized that people would _expect_ them from him every time he stood revealed, that he never would.

The Countess looked at her husband. “My Lord?”

Estienne interrupted before the Count could speak. “If a pagan is brought into this Court, I will go to the Bishop and bring excommunication down on all of you! How can you consider such a thing, my Lady!”

Nicolò blew out a weary breath as the light of hope in the Countess’ eyes flickered and died. So much for that.

The Count rose to his feet. “Return the creature to the dungeon. If the child is not healed by morning, then we know that this is no angel, but a demon, and we will treat with it accordingly.”

_Please, Yusuf,_ Nicolò thought as the guardsmen dragged him to his feet. _They will not listen, and I am so tired._

**

Finding his way to the dungeon was more difficult than his earlier routes had been, as he had no one to follow. Yusuf no longer truly cared, though. Remaining hidden soon would not be possible, when he walked through whatever stone and steel kept him from Nicolò. There was little point preserving his secrecy now.

His Nicolò, on his knees before court, offering them not only a chance to show mercy, but a true chance to end the child’s suffering. Yusuf endlessly loved the heart within that man, that insisted on trying such things. Yusuf was no physician either, and had not examined the child besides—who knew if Ibn Sina’s teachings would help? But there was more of a chance they would than having wine and blood and spittle forced down the poor thing’s throat.

He didn’t blame the French; he didn’t even blame Christianity, anymore. It was the way of humans everywhere to clutch at what they hoped might be true and fear any suggestions otherwise. They had no way to see which of those suggestions were the truth.

He rounded a corner and found himself face to face with a servant boy, who promptly dropped the basin he was carrying. “What’s the fastest way to the dungeon?” Yusuf asked, scooping the basin up and shoving it into the boy’s hands. “Quickly, now. Just tell me.”

It was a trick that almost always worked—giving a puzzled mind a clear direction to follow, like steering a frightened horse or goat down an alleyway to where the castrating knife waited. “Those stairs there,” the boy gasped, clutching the basin to his chest. “And then left, left. You’ll see the guards. And you’ll _smell_ it, before you see them.”

“Thank you.” Yusuf nodded to him and walked away. No point threatening the boy or telling him not to tell anyone. His mind might well make up a story to explain the encounter—that Yusuf was a visitor, perhaps, or one of du Lac’s soldiers. Or he might raise the alarm, but Yusuf was beyond worrying about that now.

Down the stairs, the left-hand turn, another left, and he did indeed smell the dungeon before he saw the guards, but not in the way he’d assumed. The narrow corridor reeked of incense, not filth and decay. Apparently, the priest was still trying to wring blessings from Nicolò by surrounding him with holy things.

Two guards stood outside the cell; inside it, the priest knelt and prayed before his candles and incense. Nicolò lay on the cot, looking profoundly bored, occasionally glancing at the priest with a slight smile. Presumably there was some esoteric bit of Christian lore that amused him; Yusuf would hear about it later, with any luck.

“Hayati,” he said, stepping out of the shadows. “Have you even _tried_ to escape?”

Nicolò smiled. “I know how you love to ride to the rescue.”

“Do you?” The guardsmen were still gawking, not even reaching for their swords. Yusuf drew his own. “I do not want to hurt anyone. Walk away, and I will take my man and leave.”

“Are you a demon?” one of the men asked. “Père Estienne, what is this creature?”

Nicolò got to his feet and stretched. “Not a demon at all. This is the true angel here, come to carry me away to a realm of bliss…”

“Don’t bring me into your theological nonsense. I’ve been worried about you.” It wouldn’t be this easy, Yusuf _knew_ , but they had played this game for so long, and it was lovely to play it again.

**

Estienne began praying at the top of his voice, hands clutched before him like he could summon a weapon into them through sheer will. Nicolò understood the idea, he truly did. Perhaps God would reach down and reward one of His children who showed faith with intensity unto madness. Perhaps that was all anyone on Earth ever needed to do to find holy redemption.

It hadn’t worked for Nicolò, as hard as he’d tried. His redemption, his peace, had come only after walking away from faith as a competition of intensity in favor of faith as a steady compass that he followed like the beat of his heart in his chest.

“Nicolò,” Yusuf said quietly. “We should leave.”

One of the guardsmen gathered himself. “Neither of you are going anywhere. How did you even get into the castle? Are you infiltrating us for someone else? One of the Count’s enemies?”

Yusuf shrugged one shoulder, a gesture that made the corner of Nicolò’s eye twitch. That particular shrug typically meant that Yusuf was enacting a plan on the fly, one that had no background or contingencies. They would simply try it out, die, try it out again until they either escaped or...

...well, they’d never failed to escape, so far. Nicolò wished he was wearing something more suited for running and fighting, or that he at least had boots on his feet. He was going to be a mess by the time they got to safety.

“I am du Lac’s man,” Yusuf said, and Nicolò had to give him credit—that threw the guardsmen into quite a muddle.

It cut the priest off mid-prayer as well. “du Lac?” Estienne looked at Yusuf for a moment, then turned to Nicolò. “Is this some sort—did du Lac _plant_ you to make a fool of me in front of the Count?”

Nicolò shrugged, echoing Yusuf’s nonchalance as best he could. Not a confirmation, but not a dissent, either—let the enemy fill in the blanks with his own speculation and flee through the gaps. Andromache and Quynh had taught them that.

“But your healing... if you’re du Lac’s creature, what—” The priest’s eyes grew wide. “du Lac is a sorcerer? He consorts with the devil! He’s draining the life from the child to make his way to the Count’s side!”

Nicolò met Yusuf’s eyes through the cell bars. This might be enough to free them, but it would do nothing to help the little heir to Rodez. Another set of scales before them, as ever; how to balance things between their own freedom for another day, versus serving others, striving to serve the good and right?

Yusuf spoke in the tongue of the Maghreb, which he had taught Nicolò over so many years. “We cannot heal the child ourselves, either.”

“No.” Nicolò answered in the same tongue, then exhaled slowly. He drew away from the priest, who was shouting at the guardsmen with increasing incoherence. “Break the lock, hiyati. Best if we go.”

**

Breaking the lock wasn’t necessary, alhamdullilah. Their brief conversation in a language not of the Church sent the priest into even greater paroxysms of denouncing witchcraft, which rattled the guardsmen enough that they unlocked the cell door. In a heartbeat, Nicolò had kicked out to the side, sweeping the priest’s legs out from under him. Before his head could hit the floor, Nicolò had caught him, drawing his elbow across the man’s throat in an easy chokehold.

“I have no wish to hurt this man,” he said, switching back to the common tongue. “I wish only to leave this place. Tell du Lac whatever you want. Tell the Count whatever you want. Tell them there were ten men, they overpowered you. Tell them it was only the two of us, but we ascended to the ceiling and vanished in a flash of light. I don’t care. But I do not want to hurt any of you, or your priest. I only want to leave.”

“Truly you are a devil.” The older of the two guardsmen shook his head. “But I swore only to fight men in the Count’s service, not devils.”

The other guardsman nodded and took a step back. “Leave the priest and go.”

“Hell, take him with you for all we care,” muttered the first. Yusuf wanted to laugh—some time on the road might do the priest a bit of good; wandering holy men, in his experience, cared for the flock far more tenderly than those set up in castles—but there was no time, no time.

“Nicolò,” he said quietly. “Come.”

Nicolò nodded and pushed the priest down to the floor. “Do not move,” he said, switching his language again, this time to Latin. From the look on the priest’s face, he had memorized his Latin far more than truly coming to understand it, but the message was clear. “If you wish to serve God, then protect that child. Send for physicians trained in Avicenna’s ways. Keep the child clean and dry, away from droughts and insects. God will not send an angel to speak His will, Estienne. He wants humanity to care for one another.”

Nicolò walked away without looking back, coming eagerly to Yusuf’s side. Yusuf had known him long enough to track the movements of his hands, though. No time, but he would ask him about it later, inshallah.

“Give us a head start before you raise the alarm, no?” Nicolò raised his eyebrows at the guardsmen, who nodded in response, then let Yusuf take him by the arm and steer him down the corridor away from the cell. “I’m exhausted,” Nicolò murmured, “and I don’t have any shoes. How do you think we should do this?”

“The usual.” Yusuf squeezed his arm gently. “Hide out overnight and steal what we need in the morning.”

**

They stole cloaks and boots but didn’t take any horses away with them from Rodez.

“Too easily tracked and recognized,” Yusuf said, boosting himself up on a tree limb to check the road ahead of them. “We’ll find something on the way. It won’t hurt either of us to walk, you know.”

“I do know.” Nicolò looked up at him, squinting against the sun that was halfway to its height. “All I said was that I wish we could move a little faster. I’d like more space between du Lac and Estienne and my backside.”

Yusuf squinted down the road. “If they had any interest in your backside, they would have pursued it long before I got there, I think.”

“ _Yusuf_.”

“It’s a ripe, round fruit, hiyati. If they wanted it, they would not have been able to resist.”

“You’re awful.” Nicolò sighed and offered up his hand as Yusuf prepared to jump down. “Walking it is, though, if that’s what you want.”

“At least walking on our own feet, we don’t have to worry about another thrown horseshoe.”

“Santa Maria, yes,” Nicolò sighed, then yelped as Yusuf snapped his fingers and caught him by the wrist. “What—”

“I saw you, when you left the priest on the floor. You took something off him, what was it? Let me see.”

“Oh.” Nicolò sighed and tugged down the collar of his cloak, exposing the chemise he still wore. Nothing but that and boots; God help them if they were stopped by anyone with a bit of suspicion or the sense given an idiot. “His rosary.”

Yusuf traced the beads carefully, one eyebrow lifting. “May I ask why?”

Nicolò shrugged. “It’s beautiful, and holy, and deserves someone of better faith than his.”

The other eyebrow joined in skepticism. “Wouldn’t thinking that of yourself be considered committing the sin of pride, my love?”

“Of course.” Nicolò’s mouth twitched, torn between a self-mocking smile and one of simple love for Yusuf in all his forthrightness. “I’ll sell it when we find a marketplace. Half the money to carry us along, half to the poor.”

“Ah, of course.” Yusuf kissed him between the eyes and released his wrist with a final caress. “That’s not our zakat, but sadagah. From the goodness of our hearts.”

“Oh, of course.” Arguing about how much of what they accumulated should be given away had occupied them for three hundred years and would probably go on for as long as they did. “ _Directly_ to the poor, at that, in a beggar’s bowl, not through the church-box, even...”

They walked south and west, steps steady. They didn’t speak further of what had happened, of how it would happen again and again as the world aged and they remained the same. Thinking about the stretch of time in front of them was a sure way to go mad; better to live in the moment.

There was no way to know when they would reach Al-Andalus, not with all the distractions waiting to turn their steps aside, but they were traveling together, and they had nothing but time.

**Author's Note:**

> Avicenna is the Latinized form of Ibn Sina, a writer during the Islamic Golden Age considered the father of early modern medicine. I recommend looking him up if you have some time, he's a fascinating man.
> 
> Thanks to Sea for Muslim-picking this; all remaining errors are my own.


End file.
